Labels: art for blind
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Ah, the call of birds. This is a band featuring LAAAAAAAAANDONERS. Playing sort o’ mathy post punk. And it’s messy. And the vocals are kind of weird. Sort of like if Chris Leo had been kicked in the nads and had his tongue stapled to a desk. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t me being narky. I love weird vocals, Fred Thomas’ is one of my favourite singers. Anyway. The guitars scoot around, sometimes grooving and sometimes a little more hectic, but never to the point of losing the plot. Apparently they are somewhat influenced by Tubers, and you can hear that a bit in the sound, but the song writing isn’t quite there yet. It also reminds me a bit of Long Live, in an odd and roundabout way. They definitely sound like they could have come from Norwich in 2003. You can also pick out elements of members’ previous bands, What Price, Wonderland? and Twisted. No escape!
Whilst we’re in the midst of this review, I shall point out that the packaging is dead emo – tape in a sealed, screened envelope. And the recording is perfect for the style of music, clearly put together by someone who was familiar with what the band wanted. Everything is spaced out nicely and well balanced, whilst maintaining plenty of character and energy.
Overall, this is definitely solid, but I don’t quite think they are where there they are headed yet. There’s many ideas, but they don’t quite gel together. The nervous energy that they expel stops the songs from being quite as cohesive as they could be, and the melodic parts are rather lacking in hooks, making it hard to get a handle on – songs change direction rather frequently. This isn’t necessarily a negative, post punk bands generally have a habit for being tough to penetrate at times. Yet this is definitely a work in progress. I look forward to hearing what they do next, but at the moment this is much more of a blueprint than the finished article.